Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the music video “The Great Escape” by Patrick Watson, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about an escape.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday June 3rd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

“The Great Escape” by Patrick Watson

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry” by Patrick Rosal, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about the beauty within asymmetry.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday May 20th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry" by Patrick Rosal

Doesn’t the eye love the ragged
tear of sky the treetop-shred
horizon The eye— after all—
loves the dizzy
dip of a road: its precarious
tilt towards a ravine
only wrist-deep water
and giant smooth rocks to break
the sky’s fall The eye
loves the bit peach window agape
buildings caught mid-swagger across a skyline
The eye loves unpainted pickets
cracked planks the harlequin the prow
poked out of water
like a chin loves
the evergreen arched over a flood
like an old man looking into the street
for a hand loves a sawed link chewed
rope a birch’s slants But
the eye can’t
love what it can’t
see: the woman
striding tired and brave amid the lobby’s bustle
and under her shirt
a single breast
For Maureen Clyne

Patrick Rosal
Who Says the Eye Loves Symmetry is reprinted from Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (Persea Books, 2003) and originally appeared in Uncommon Denominators (Palanquin Press, 2000).
Poem, copyright © 2000 by Patrick Rosal
Appearing on From the Fishouse with permission
Audio file, copyright © 2005, From the Fishouse

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read an excerpt from the novel “The Ceremony p. 91-92 ” by Leslie Marmon Silko, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being seen from the outside.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Friday May 17th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

The Ceremony p. 91-92 by Leslie Marmon Silko

She sat with the sheets pulled around her and watched him get dressed. “I have been 
watching you for a long time,” she said. “I saw the color of your eyes.”

   Tayo did not look at her.

  “Mexican eyes,” he said, “the other kids used to tease me.”

   The rain was only a faint sound on the roof, and the sound of the thunder was distant, and 
moving east. Tayo unbolted the door and opened it; he watched the rainwater pour out of the 
rain gutter over the side of the long porch. “I always wished I had dark eyes like other 
people. When they look at me they remember things that happened. My Mother. His throat
felt tight. He had not talked about this before with anyone.

   She shook her head slowly. “They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they 
can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or 
whites – most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same 
color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.” She laughed slowly. “They 
are fools. They blame us, the one who look different. That way they don’t have to think 
about what has happened inside themselves.”

Credit: Leslie Marmon Silko

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “Statement of Teaching Philosophy” by Keith Leonard, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about when words fail.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Friday May 10th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy by Keith Leonard

My students want certainty. They want it
so badly. They respect science and have memorized
complex formulas. I don’t know
how to tell my students their parents
are still just as scared. The bullies get bigger
and vaguer and you cannot punch a cloud.
I have eulogies for all my loved ones prepared,
but cannot include this fact in my lesson plans.
The best teacher I ever had told me to meet him
at the basketball court. We played pick-up for hours.
By the end, I lay panting on the hardwood
and couldn’t so much as stand.
He told me to describe the pain in my chest.
I tried. I couldn’t find the words. Not exactly.
Listen, he said, that’s where language ends.

Credit: Keith Leonard. Waxwing literary journal

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Rita Basuray prompt response: